EDIT: This chart doesn't work....there's another marker that I didn't account for, Nov 1881 when the numbering of Oxford St. changed. 1st SN with 277 or 16 was 23816. I can't make that number fit into Nov 1881 very easily without skyrocketing the number of Reilly's built in the following 5 years. I've sent Terry a message ask about 27854 and 27570 and how confident he is in a Paris address being on either rib or barrel. The chart will be edited asap.

Here are the latest estimates of the dates of Reilly SN's guns taking into account 12boreman's 14983 rue Scribe rib and Terry Buffum's 27854 with "a Paris address" (I haven't seen 27854's rib photos; Terry is pretty meticulous about his guns so we'll assume this is the new end-number for rue Scribe). To repeat the above caveats: there are assumptions:

1). 1825 was chosen as a start date and gun SN "1". Both assumptions are not proven. Allegedly Reilly became a member of the London Proof House in 1825, the reason for choosing this date. The earliest gun SN found is 162. Thus the reasoning for starting at "1".

2) The number of SN'd guns produced between marker dates was estimated and an effort was made to make increases logical. That's also is not hard and fast data but subjective reasoning. For instance after the 1855 Paris Universelle, he was "overdone by orders" but I've only shown an increase in gun production of about 20.

3). I had a problem in the 1859-67 era, where, if we were to accept 13333 as having been made in early 1862 it would have meant he produced 600 guns from 1859-62, but 360 62-67, so I used the average for the whole period and smoothed it out so that there was not sudden jumps in production. (This turned out to be correct; 13333 was made in circa May 1864 when Reilly had the manufacturing rights to Green.)

4) I assumed the decline of Reilly was pretty sharp beginning in the mid 1890's - it of course could have been earlier or later but without analysis of proof marks from a number of guns SN's 32000-35000 is impossible to say objectively; the marking of this decline is therefore subjective based on lack of ads and closing of 16 Oxford St. in 1898. (I assumed 16 Oxford, the larger building, was their largest finishing facility; 277 had the shooting gallery. Without enough orders to keep both open, closing 16 would seem logical).

Again, Reilly targeted a specific sector of the market for his bespoke serial numbered guns - low price, quality hand-made wares, rapidly delivered; as the factories went towards mass production and steel barrels, and you could walk into a sporting gun shop and buy factory made guns off the rack, his business model just couldn't hold up.

The reasoning and research behind these numbers and a chart of history, names on gun ribs, case/trade labels, etc. will be a separate post below.

This chart of course cannot be definitive; but enough checks have come in to show that it will get a Reilly owner close to the date his gun was Serial Numbered.

(DELETED - See below for latest)

Last edited by Argo44; 10/12/18 11:10 AM.
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